ASEAN Journal of Chemical Engineering
Vol 2, No 1 (2002)

Effects of Shear Rate on Morphology and Gas Separation Performance as Asymetric Polysulfone Membranes

Ahmad Fauzi Ismail (Faculty of Chemical and Natural Resources Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Johor Bahru Tel: 07-5505392, Fax: 07-5581463)
Lai Ping Yean (Faculty of Chemical and Natural Resources Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Johor Bahru Tel: 07-5505392, Fax: 07-5581463)



Article Info

Publish Date
20 Oct 2008

Abstract

Asymmetric polysulfone flat sheet membranes have been produced by a dry/wet casting technique. The membranes were produced at different shear rate. Gas permeation properties were examined using pure hydrogen and nitrogen as test gases. Infrared dichroism was detected in all samples, the extent being greater in the high shear membranes. This suggests that the polymer molecules become aligned under high shear. Gas separation tests showed that the higher shear membranes exhibited greater selectivity (H!Nz)' Some of the membrane selectivities even surpass the intrinsic selectivity of the membrane polymer. Increasing shear rate during casting had decreased skin layer thickness and thus increased pressure-normalized flux. High-shear casting also enhances the molecular orientation in skin layer and, in turn, heighten selectivity of membrane. Therefore, correlation of rheological aspects with primary phase inversion parameters provides a potential platform to develop high performance asymmetric polysulfone membranes for gas separation.Key words: asymmetric membranes, gas separation, rheology, molecular orientation, super-selective, polysulfone

Copyrights © 2008






Journal Info

Abbrev

AJChE

Publisher

Subject

Biochemistry, Genetics & Molecular Biology Chemical Engineering, Chemistry & Bioengineering Chemistry

Description

The ASEAN Journal of Chemical Engineering publishes papers on Chemical Engineering, specifically but not limited to the areas of thermodynamics, reaction kinetics, transport phenomena, process control, environment, energy, biotechnology, corrosion, separation science, powder technology, materials ...